Town Square

War on Women: Real or Imagined?

Original post made
by Cindy Cross, Parkside,
on May 7, 2012

With the 2012 presidential election six months away, many people are crying foul on the GOPs stance on women's rights. Should this be a genuine concern for women in America? Or is this a political strategy to win female votes on either side of the aisle?
Abortion, Planned Parenthood funding, and equal pay for women in the work force are just a few issues that have come center stage in the debate concerning women. The catalyst was Rush Limbaugh's comments in February about Georgetown University Law Center student Sandra Fluke who appeared before House Democrats explaining the need for mandating insurance coverage for contraceptives. Limbaugh did offer an apology, but the genie was out of the bottle. Many conservatives came out to support Limbaugh, while many found his words offensive and unnecessary.
One agency the GOP has their sights on is Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood is a non-profit agency that provides gynecologic services which include birth control, screening for breast, cervical and testicular cancers; pregnancy testing and pregnancy options counseling; testing and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases; sex education, menopause treatments; vasectomies, tubal ligations, and abortion.
Mitt Romney has vowed to get rid of Planned Parenthood. "Planned Parenthood, we're going to get rid of that." This would be devastating to poor and middle class women who depend on Planned Parenthood for their reproductive needs such as cancer screenings, preventative care, and birth control.
The sticking point for the GOP is abortion. Any association with abortion overshadows all the other services Planned Parenthood provides. "Getting rid" of an agency that provides poor women access to birth control could potentially back-fire on the GOP in the long term by a population explosion down the road. Setting aside abortion and birth control, Planned Parenthood provides valuable services that women would have no access to if Romney is elected.
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed into law a bill prohibiting tax money from funding non-abortion services by Planned Parenthood, and many other GOP controlled states are following suit. Texas attempted the same route, but U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel issued an injunction stopping Texas's defunding until he can schedule a trial and hear arguments on the issue.
Here are other issues effecting women around the country, to name a few:
• Wisconsin Senator (R) Glenn Grothman recently sponsored legislation that repealed the state's 2009 Equal Pay Enforcement Act, which paved the way for victims of wage discrimination to have their day in court. According to Grothman, "You could argue that money is more important for men. Women were often more focused on raising children than earning money." Governor Scott Walker signed the bill into law in April.
• Grothman also proposed a bill that would declare single moms a contributing factor to child abuse and neglect.
• Maryland Republicans ended all county funds for a low-income kids' preschool program, because, they reasoned, women should be home with the kids, not out working.
According to a Pew Research poll, Obama leads by 20% with women voters. In 2008, 43% of women supported John McCain, where only 30% support Romney. This is a huge gap for Romney. Is Romney pandering too much to the far right who support the Scott Walker and Glenn Grothman measures concerning women? Or are women who support Romney waiting to show up en masse in November? Either way, the GOP needs to find a way to attract women who are more centrist and not keen on setting the clock back to 1950.

Comments (14)

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Posted by john douglas
a resident of another community
on May 7, 2012 at 11:34 pm

These are dark days for the republican party with their war on everything except the banks and Wall Street brokers. So it comes as no surprise that they are treading down this path against women, which to some extension, follows their path of treating minorities as second class citizens. I think the best example for where the republican party stands in today's culture is in the one hit wonder Ted Nugent. An angry white male who who couldn't sell out a high school dance auditorium, yet speaks loud and clear for an out of touch party that thinks the women's rights should be decided by men - old out of touch white men!

Posted by SteveP
a resident of Parkside
on May 8, 2012 at 8:54 amSteveP is a registered user.

Wow, John...not a rock and roll fan and apparently no alive in the 80's either. Here's some news for you John, Ted Nugent is not a politician, any more than George Zimmerman is a spokesperson for the democrat party.
On a related note (women's rights), this week, Muslim Day was organized at the state capitol: Web Link
No doubt in recognition for that religion/culture's contributions towards women's rights. No mutilations were have reported during this event.
From the article: "Monday's lobby gathering in Sacramento isn't tied to the national election. But it does reflect a realization that if you don't speak out, you can get run over."

Posted by Mr. Mittens
a resident of another community
on May 8, 2012 at 9:28 am

Heck, stevepee is right. When it comes to women's rights we're better than the Muslims for goodness sakes! How many Muslim wife own two Cadillacs for heavens sake? That's gotta be saying something. Let's continue to set the bar low enough so that pregnant women in most states who can't afford to travel out of state for an abortion will think twice before getting pregnant again. And down with Planned Parenthood. Rush is right. Women who seek birth control assistance are nothing but sluts. Well, not really sluts. But their sexual licentiousness is putting a great strain upon taxpayers in this country.

Posted by facts
a resident of Another Pleasanton neighborhood
on May 8, 2012 at 3:18 pm

PP is a non-profit organization and not an agency of the government, nor an agency of any other group or corporation. The use of the word agency there is curious, is the author trying to make people believe PP is an agency of the fed govt, or just mistaken?
PP also receives $75 million to provide family planning assistance to low-income women, money that its opponents say only frees up funds for abortions. PP has an overall budget of over $1.1 billion.
Cutting off that funding wouldn't "get rid of" PP in any way.

Cutting off the funding and providing it to another non-profit that can provide the same services without providing abortions would not damage women's health one iota.

Sandra Fluke is a Georgetown Univ law student, and there is no organization called "Georgetown University Law Center"
Sandra Fluke is not just a student. She is a political activist, and past President of "Georgetown Law Students for Reproductive Justice" Web Link

A Republican organized a hearing and invited five clergymen to testify about being forced (by a controversial rule implemented by the Obama Admin) to provide contraception benefits to employees. The purpose of the hearing was to hear from clergy, and the hearing was "not about reproductive rights but instead about the administration's actions as they relate to freedom of religion and conscience"

Ms Fluke was added by Democrats at the last minute as a witness, to testify about free contraception for college students. When she was rejected as a witness, the Democratic campaigns sent out no fewer than seven emails in a five day period to beg for campaign money.

This event was the invention of the phony "war on women". the purpose was purely political.

Not ironic at all is the fact that a poor college student like Sandra Fluke could go to an organization like PP and get cheap or free birth control, and if she wants to have sex with multiple partners, she would never have to go looking for a taxpayer-funded abortion.

The mushhead Rush Limbaugh couldn't have twisted the facts any better.

Churches aren't agencies that belong to govt either. Yet they get funded for all sorts of things. Repubs don't want to challenge this, however. Because the sick misogynist creeps only want to attack women's ability to gain health care (including birth control aids), they invited a bunch of misogynist religious white men ("experts" on women's health issues, not) to testify about the horrors of birth control as being part of health care for women.

Fluke is a student at Georgetown Univ Law School. She is a political activist. So what? So are the old religious white guys who Repubs stacked so shamelessly on the panel.

Efforts to restrict women's access to health care is hardly a phoney war. It constitutes a direct assault upon women, and especially poor women who don't have money to cross state or nat'l boundaries to attend to their health care needs.

The sicko creep above, casts aspersions against Ms. Fluke because "she wants to have sex with multiple partners." In fact, how many partners one has has no bearing on one's felt need for health care in the form of birth control. Fluke's own situation is a bit more complicated, because her birth control needs are bound up with other physical needs.

Fluke was testifying in order to make the argument that Georgetown, as part and parcel of offering students a health care package, should not exclude birth control needs as one and the same with health care needs.

The sicky above hears about sex and can't get sex out of his mind. Like Rush, he insinuates that Fluke is sexually "loose" and therefore an abomination who doesn't deserve health care.

That said, I offer my thanks to the sick mushhead above who so amply demonstrates how Republicans are waging war against women. Many thanks.

Posted by AnnaS
a resident of Foothill High School
on May 8, 2012 at 5:36 pm

There is, indeed, a war on women. Left radicals with the President of America as their representative successfully convince women that they are nothing but brainless sex machines discriminated by white straight men and not capable of surviving without strong government supervision. The rest of the country, including independently thinking women, fail to prove them wrong; to show that women are not as stupid as professors of liberal arts schools are.
If the polls are correct and not a Pravda style media representation of reality, the majority of women agree with the left.
Of course, kids are the ones who is getting hurt most.

Posted by Janna
a resident of Dublin
on May 8, 2012 at 6:03 pmJanna is a registered user.

Somewhere around thirty states have GOP sponsored abortion bills. There's even one that claims women are pregnant even before they've had their cycle. Now I seem to remember something called Roe v. Wade which allows women to have abortions and under what time constraints and circumstances. These state sponsored bills are proposed for what reason? To put more restrictions on women. Cause you know we are just too stupid to manage our own reproductive rights being the lesser sex and all. I think I just threw up in my mouth a little from writing that last part.

I think the above poster, facts (as if he had any) is a Rush wannabe sicko. Elizabeth, you are so right on!

Thanks Janna, and I agree. The GOP is crawling with sick old white men who think they still have a claim on our bodies. (And then there is poor Anna, who I feel very sorry for.)

Anything involving reproduction or sex immediately has them going into the sewers of their minds, culling up all things lurid. Their inability (or downright refusal) to recognize birth control as a woman's health issue speaks to just what kinds of moral dinosaurs remain at the core of the Republican Party. Theirs is a sickness that needs to be pointed out. Mark my words. This shall not help them at all come election time. Do they actually think we don't think about and know about our own bodies and health needs? Staggering!

Posted by ccm
a resident of West of Foothill
on May 8, 2012 at 9:03 pm

Cindy, you bring up alot of great information for all of to think about. The GOP would love all women to crawl back to the 1950's and never question anything that might affect their rights. Lets not let that happen. Planned Parenthood serves the community for women and men alike. P.S. Mr Mittens you make my skin crawl with your woman hating comments. You need to crawl back under that rock from which your slithered.

Posted by mittens
a resident of Another Pleasanton neighborhood
on May 9, 2012 at 8:40 am

"Cause you know we are just too stupid to manage our own reproductive rights being the lesser sex and all. I think I just threw up in my mouth a little from writing that last part."
Thanks for pointing out the obvious...good thing someone in govt is looking out for you. Makes one wonder how you got by this far without more govt assistance.

"Let's continue to set the bar low enough so that pregnant women in most states who can't afford to travel out of state for an abortion will think twice before getting pregnant again."
How about just thinking once....therein lies the problem, troll.

Posted by Janna
a resident of Dublin
on May 9, 2012 at 9:04 amJanna is a registered user.

The problem, mittens, is that you and most of your republican friends are misogynists. End of story. Let's start legislating what you can do with your penis and then we can have a semi-balanced debate about reproductive issues.

Posted by Former Student
a resident of Vintage Hills Elementary School
on May 9, 2012 at 7:39 pm

This whole war on women is just a fake and stupid situation created by liberals as a way to discredit republicans. Both sides do it, remember the GOP and their ludicrous war on Christmas? Wise up, people, don't be tools in the political fights.

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